Ballarat, Beer & Masternodes!

Beers in the Rat (and what the hell is a Masternode?)!

And this time there’s more than one beer to talk about. That was a beer filled weekend indeed. My wife and I ventured off to the little town of Ballarat for a friends birthday this weekend, so I took the chance to try a few new beers while there.

There’s wifey in the distance. 🙂

I was actually expecting to visit a local brewery, since Ballarat has a couple of great ones. But instead, we visited a bar next to our hotel which stocked around 200 craft beers.

It was an impressive line up, so rather than just have one or two, I once again went for the paddle.

There’s nothing quite like a good paddle.

Of course, I chose my favourite styles of beer. An IPA, an IIPA, a Porter and a Stout. All from different breweries, but all Australian.

Two Birds Brewing – Rye IPA

Two Birds Brewing is a brewery located in Melbourne. They’re well known for producing some quality beers. The brewer describes the beer as being malt driven with spicy and fruity aroma. Personally, I found it to be a fairly traditional IPA that was a little on the weak side in terms of fruity aromas, strength of hops and bitterness. It’s a decent IPA, but nothing I would get too excited about.

Bells Brewing Co. – Malted Double IPA

Bells Brewing Co. is located in Geelong, Victoria and is a brewery that I’ve never encountered before. I’m glad I did. This was an impressive IIPA that was both fruity in aroma, on the palate with an excellent strength of both hops and bitterness. It’s a beer with a complexity that you can appreciate, so was definitely a stand out on this paddle.

Odyssey Craft Brewing – Caramel Porter

Odyssey is another Victorian brewery, and another that I had never heard of before. This porter is pretty much as described, lots of malts and caramel on the nose, and not at all subtle hints of caramel on the palate. It’s a sweet porter, which was pleasant. Overall this was quite an enjoyable beer, but not all all session-able.

Fox Hat Brewing Co. – Phat Mongrel

Fox Hat Brewing Co. is an Australian brewery, located somewhere in Australia. I’ve found with this review that some breweries are terrible at telling us where they are located, and these guys are the best at avoiding the provision of a location.

At least their beer is good. The Phat Mongrel is an Oatmeal Stout. And I’ve discovered in recent months that I love a good Oatmeal Stout. This one is very much a traditional Oatmeal Stout, it has strong hops aroma and is smooth on the palate with a mild bitterness. It’s a very easy drinking Stout and quite a stand out for me.

Beer

Type

Origin

ABV

Rating

Two Birds Brewing Rye IPA

IPA

Victoria

6.4

3.5

Bells Brewing Co. Malted Double IPA

IIPA

Victoria

7.5

4

Odyssey Craft Brewing Caramel Porter

Porter

Victoria

5

4

Fox Hat Brewing Co. Phat Mongrel

Oatmeal Stout

Victoria

6.5%

4

Masternodes – a worthy passive income stream?

Right now, I’m researching how I can expand on my passive income streams in the cryptocurrency world. This research has lead me to masternode coins. If you’re like me, then you’ve probably never really learnt about masternodes before as well, and possibly have never heard of them. So what is a masternode?

“a masternode is a server on a decentralized network. It is utilized to complete unique functions in ways ordinary nodes can’t. It can be used for features like direct send / instant transactions or private transactions.

Because of their increased capabilities, masternodes typically require a sizable investment in order to run. But this is where incentivization comes into play, as masternode operators are rewarded by earning portions of block rewards in whatever given cryptocurrency they’re facilitating.” Source

When purchasing a masternode you are buying a set number of coins and staking these coins in a wallet that is left open to verify that you hold the required number of coins in order to operate a masternode. The number of coins can vary from 1000 to 50,000 coins, depending on the coin.

The first and most popular of the masternode coins is DASH. And for many, DASH has proven to be a great investment. Due to the popularity of DASH however, a masternode costs a substantial amount of money – as of right now the cost to purchase a DASH masternode is almost $240,000.

Are masternodes worth investing in?

Essentially, by running masternodes you can generate a passive income stream of your chosen coin. But the good quality coins in this space are limited. It appears that this type of coin is becoming increasingly popular, and with it are all the scams and shit-coins.

Finding a good quality coin to invest in is hard, and I’ve spent many hours sifting through the wide range of coins listed on sites such as masternodes.online and masternodes.pro to see if I can find something suitable to invest in.

The return on investment varies massively from coin to coin as well. There are some coins that only provide a few percent return, while others can offer many thousands of percent return. And of course, with the increasing promise of return comes an increase in risk. What goes up fast, often falls very fast as well.

So, if you’re thinking of investing in a masternode you’ll need to do extensive research to confirm that you have found a quality coin with a solid purpose and team behind it. I’ve found many coins don’t even list the team behind them, and have come across some where the developers have simply walked away from the project. I was even quite sad to enter a telegram channel where the masternode holders had only just discovered that the developers had left the project. And as I sat there chatting to the people who were left holding large bags of a worthless coin, they discovered that the developers had just launched another scam coin and had listed it as offering a 30,000% return on investment. This is clearly a risky game.

The point is, masternode coins can offer an excellent source of a passive income but you need to be aware of the risks involved. My checks to confirm that a coin might be worth investing in tend to include the following:

Does the coin serve a real purpose?

Is there a decent team behind the coin?

Is the return on investment worth the effort?

Is there an active and engaged community behind the coin?

Is the coin listed on a number of exchanges, including reputable exchanges?

Is there a decent volume of coins being moved every 24 hours?

I’m yet to find a coin that I feel comfortable investing in, so will report back once I make my first investment in a masternode and will provide a write up on how I went about setting one up.

Have you invested in masternodes yourself? I’d love to hear your experience in the comments below.